Apparatus for conditioning air



Feb. 22, 1938. NF. F. VO N WILMOWSKY 2,109,019

APPARATUS FOR CONDITIONING AIR Filed Jan. 15, 1936 Patented Feb. 22, 1938 UNITED STATES PAT N'r ori-"icl-z;

APPARATUS FOR. CONDITIONING AER Felix F. von Wilmowsky, New York, N. Y.

Application January 15, 1936, Serial No. 59,325

3 Claims.

The improved air-conditioners here described either condense or compress and expand the air, to a suitable degree, from the degree of condensation which is involved in a breeze to a degree of 5 compression-particularly in installations whose yield of air is to be high relatively to the space they occupy as in submarines-which involves heating of the air. I

The working of the improved air-conditioners is practically automatic: the air is condensed'or compressed, purified by improved filters; the resulting air current is suitably cooled or chilled and respectively heated and its humidity is adjusted; if compressed, the flow and the distribul5- tion of the air as well as the adjustment of its cooling and its moisture are aided by the expansion of the air.

, The operation of the improved air conditioners is economical and is sanitary: needless extreme :0 temperatures are avoided, which are wasteful, particularly in view of the generally continuous operation of the air-conditioners. For conditioning the air in living quarters and where food or sensitive substances are concerned and no low 25 temperature is needed, an innocuous and nonvolatile liquid is employed indoors'for cooling and chilling the air instead of the highly volatile and more or less noxious expanding refrigerants such as ammonia and dioxide of sulphur and dichlo- 30 rodifiuoromethane (commercially known as Freon), which are at present in general use with air-conditioners and which involve the danger of leaks and an explosion and, in case of a fire, of poisonous fumes indoors.

35 For the improved filters, in which the air is cleansed and is purified chemically, an inorganic material is employed which is indifferent to the multifarious insanitary if not dangerous and harmful impurities and foreign admixtures of the 40 air resulting from community life and particularly from industrial activities and manufacturing, The substance and shape of such inorganic containers are adapted to the character and shape of the various chemicals employed and to 45 the various modes of chemical action as will be specified below. Foreign admixtures which may be carried along by the condensed or compressed air stream are eliminated by sinks and by washing the air, dissociating foreign admixtures as will be 50 described below.

The improved air conditioners which treat the air indoors utilize the technical economic and sanitary advantages afiorded by the heating and cooling system for buildings and inclosed spaces 55 which is described in the United States Patent No. 1,856,797 granted to me on May 3, 1932; an auxiliary installation with apparatus automatically providing a continuous supply of a nonvolatile suitably chilled and respectively heated liquid as coolerand respectively heater for the 5 air stream is shown in Figure III of the drawing annexed to the aforesaid patent.

The drawing hereto annexed of a preferred arrangement of the several parts or divisions of an improved air-conditioner which washes the air,.1o shows, I

Figure I, a diagrammatic elevation of an installation embodying an improved air-conditioner which condenses the cleansed and chemically purified air and utilizes the auxiliary installation hereinabove referred to for adjusting the temperature of the air;

Figure II, a plan View of the nozzle through which the purified air enters the washing liquid.

Referring to the drawing; the air to, be conditioned ,enters the installation through ducts such as the chimney marked l. The mouth of the chimney cap marked 2 is screened against coarse foreign matters such as birds and paper. The cap, removable, carries in its throat an accessible and replaceable filter marked 3, where more finely divided impurities and foreign admixtures such as dust and soot and smoke and floating pollen are retained. Any one of the known forms and structures of such filters which will serve the purpose may be employed; a preferred form consists of a layer or layers of granular adsorbent charcoal, coarse enough so as notto interfere with the desired flow of the air through it, and. held between creens or foraminous tissues of neutral inorganic material.

The filter 4 just ahead of the air compressor 5 is a chemical filter consisting of an inorganic wool such as fibres of ductile metal, slags or minerals held between suitable screens and saturated with a suitable chemical.

The cleansed and purified air enters the compression chamber marked 5. There, some suitable air-condensing or air-compressing and -propelling apparatus or machinery, such as a pressure blower or turbo-blower, or a centrifugal aircompressor with propelling or releasing accessories, turns the air into a, preferably continuous, stream of suitably condensed or compressed air and propels theair into the tube marked 6 and V livered to and to be yielded by the distributing air conduits must determine the choice of the machinery. A turbo-blower produces continuous compressed air streams up to ten pounds of pressure per square inch. An ordinary air-compressor, from which the compressed air is released in batches at a certain degree of compression, produces air compressed to a hundred pounds per square inch; it results ordinarily in an intermittent air stream with successive waves of compressed air lifting and passing throught valve I.

Tube 8 has the form of a. sepentine in a. vertical plane, consisting of three upright pipes joined together through horizontal pieces; the uprights are marked A, B, and C; they have at their bottoms sinks. The chemical filter may be located either in the chimney I, where the air is sucked in, or in the air conduit 6, where the 'condensed or compressed air flows to the temperature-adjusting compartment. Pipe C, shorter than A and- B, enters the closed tank, marked 8, through the bottom; the top of tank' 8 is lower than the highest part of the serpentine tube 6 .The nozzle of pipe C, marked 9, is in the form of an inverted funnel; it is capped by a plate marked I0. Plate I8 is perforated with a multitude of tiny pin holes, like the nozzle of 'an atomizing sprinkler.

Tank 8, like the uprights A, B, and C, has at its bottom a sink or trap, with an escape valve marked II. Inside of tank 8 is a coil of pipes marked I2; it conveys the temperature-adjusting agent. Above plate I a horizontal concave or vaulted baflle cap marked I3 is provided, fixed on the pole marked I4, which extends from the roof of tank 8. Baflle cap I3,

like plate I0, is perforated with a multitude of minute pin holes. Through coil I2 circulates a preferably non-volatile chilling and, respectively a heating liquid. The. temperature-adjusting liquid for my preferred form of indoor air-conditioners comes from and returns to the auxiliary temperatureimparting plant marked I5. Plant I5 is located preferably outside of the inclosed space to be air-conditioned, in an outhouse on the roof or on a platform. A detailed description of plant I5, with a plan and an elevation, has been published in the specification of the United States Patent No. 1,856,797, above referred to. The

auxiliary plant I5 furnishes to the air-conditioner here described an automatically regulated circulating flow of a non-volatile liquid which for the cooling of the airremains liquid below the freezing point of water, such as a salt brine or a agent for the chilling, and respectively any heating means as an agent for the heating of the air or the washing liquid.

" Tank 8 is half filled with pure water or seaorsaltor otherwise medicated water for the washing of the air; the washing liquid enters through the pipe marked I6 under suitable pressure pass ing through the valve marked I 7 from time to time as the water in tank 8 is drawn oil through the escape valve II as may be desired. The airstream, flowing through pipe 6, issues, condensed or compressed, through the contracted nozzle of .pipe 6, branch C, and enters tank 8 through the pin holes of plate Ill. The air, propelled upward washing liquid of tank 8. The air is thus dissociated by the washing liquid and by suitable ingredients of the latter from any suspended admixtures which have been carried along from the chemical filter such as dead microbes, decomposed viruses and other substances originating in the chemical filter. If there are any fragments of organic filter material such as textile fibre in the air stream, they will float with the stream into tube C and quickly clog the pinholes of plate III; any fragments of inorganic wools, being heavier, having been discarded by the stream into the sinks of pipes A, B, and C. In combination with the perforated nozzle plate and perforated baiile cap device here described and shown in the drawing, and wherever else a gas stream issues through pin holes or pin-hole valves, the above described filtering device with chemical action should be of inorganic and heavy The air, washed and conditioned, rises to the upper part of tank 8. Tank 8 is provided with a pressure gauge (not shown) and a safety valve (not shown) and with a water gauge marked I8. Branch B of conduit 6 is likewise provided with a pressure gauge marked 26 and a safety valve marked 21 and a water gauge marked I9. If by accident the air pressure in tank 8 exceed the enter tube 6 through plate I8 and will rise in branch B; it can thus, through some of the wellknown electrical devices (not shown), automatically signal an alarm and adjust the action of the machine in the compression chamber 5 by some one of the usual and well known measures and means.

The washed condensed or compressed air leaves tank 8 through theltube marked 2| and passes into the reservoir marked 22. Reservoir 22, consisting of a single chamber as shown or of sev eral communicating compartments, contains such apparatus and devices (not shown) as may be desired and of service either for drying or humidify ing the air, medicating or scenting the air, and, if the air is still highly compressed, for storing away the air is cylinders, or partially expanding the compressed air.

For air-conditioning a cold-storage plant, I have the chilling agent which comes down from the auxiliary plant I5 pass first through reservoir 22 and then through tank 8; pipe I2 containing the chilling agent passes from reservoir 22 to tank 8 through the tube 2|. The air is dried by being refrigerated below the freezing point of water.

From reservoir 22 the propelled air enters the distributing ducts through the shut-ofi valve marked 23, by which the flow of the air in the ducts is regulated and adjusted; the pressure under which the air stream enters the ducts air pressure in tube 6, the washing liquid will.-

aioaoia drives or helps to drive it forward through valves toward the exits. The velocity of the flow and therefore the intensity of the cooling and respectively heating effect of the air-conditioner depends on the concentration and the speed imparted to the air stream in chamber 5. Such propulsion is now automatically regulated and adjusted by means of thermostats (not shown), located at suitable key points of the enclosed spaces to be air-conditioned and which close and respectively open a control valve when the temperature of the room falls and respectively rises to a predetermined degree. The intensity of the cooling and respectively heating of the air in tank 8 depends in part on the velocity of the flow in coil ii; the latter is automatically controlled by a thermostat (not shown) in the reservoir 22 and which acts upon the circulation of the temperature-adjusting agent. Expanding of the condensed or compressed air lowers the temperature; if the air has absorbed enough water, its cooling causes dew to be formed; I dry the air in the reservoir 22 enough to prevent dew in the ducts. Jacketing of the cold air conduits near the installation will render drip pans unnecessary. The distribution of the expanding conditioned air stream in the ducts is regulated by the various devices now used for illuminating gas distribution, with valves, exhaust fans and blowers intercalated, combined with the impetus given to the air stream by the condensation or pressure proceeding from chamber 5 and subsequent expansion.

I claim:

1. In an air-conditioner, the combination of an air-propelling means; a'conduit for the air streamrunning from the propelling means into a closed tank; in the air conduit a filtering device which embraces a foraminous layer of an inorganic material in a substantially filamentous form and in which chemically acting substances can be held for abating foreign substances from the air stream; a closed tank for a Washing liquid in which the air conduit terminates with a perforated nozzle; above the perforated nozzle,- a perforated cap which is preferably of wider extent than the perforatednozzle, the perforated cap being fixed beneath the liquid level of the tank and so that the air stream which issues through the perforated nozzle impinges against the fixed perforated cap at a distance suitable for dissociating the foreign substances from the air; a closed pipe system running between the washing tank and an auxiliary installation for circulating a non-volatile temperature-adjusting liquid such as a calcium chloride solution chilled in the auxiliary installation for cooling the air; a conduit carrying the conditioned air from the closed tank to the interior which is to be air-conditioned. v

2. In an air-conditioner, the combination of an air-propelling means; a conduit for the air stream running in the form of a vertical serpentine from the propelling means into a closed tank; in the air conduit a filtering device which embraces a layer of an inorganic material in a substantially fibrous form and through which the air stream to be conditioned can pass and in which chemically acting substances can be held for abating foreign substances from the air; a,,

sink open to the air conduit at the lowest point of the latter for receiving solid foreign substances from the air stream; a closed tank for a washing liquid in which the air conduit terminates with a perforated nozzle; above the perforated nozzle, a perforated cap, the perforated cap extending preferably more widely than the perforated nozzle and being fixed so that it is beneath the level of the liquid in the tank and so that the air stream which issues through the perforated nozzle impinges against the perforated cap at a distance suitable for dissociating foreign substances from the air; a closed conduit coming from and returning to an auxiliary installation and passing through the closed tank for circulating a temperature-adjusting liquid such as calcium chloride solution chilled in the auxiliary installation for cooling the air to be conditioned; a conduit for conducting the conditioned air from the closed tank to the interior which is to be air-conditioned.

3. In an air-conditioner, the combination of an air-compressing and -propelling means; a conduit with a non-return valve for the compressed air stream and which runs from the propelling means into a closed tank; a part of such conduit being more elevated than the top of the closed tank; in the air conduit, a filtering device which embraces a layer of an inorganic material in a substantially filamentous form and in which chemically acting substances can be held for abating foreign substances from the air stream and through which the compressed air stream can pass; a sink open to the air conduit at the lowest level of the same for receiving foreign substances from the air stream; a closed tank for a washing liquid in which the compressed airconduit terminates with a perforated nozzle; above the perforated nozzle, a perforated cap which is preferably of a wider extent than the perforated nozzle and which is fixed beneath the level of the washing liquid and so that the compressed air stream which issues through the perforated nozzle impinges against the perforated cap at a distance suitable for dissociating foreign substances from the air; a closed conduit coming from and returning to an-auxiliary installation for circulating a temperature-adjusting liquid such as calcium chloride brine chilled in the auxiliary installation for cooling the air; a conduit for conducting the conditioned air from the closed tank to its destination.

FELm F. VON WILMOWSKY. 

